Compliment Responses Among Sudanese Learners at Sudan University for Science and Technology

Abstract

Speech acts that express and indicate cultural values are compliments. Many of the values represented by means of compliments are possessions, personal appearance, new acquisitions, skills, and talents. It is particularly significant when it comes to social language interactions. According to the data, the most employed strategy types in formal and informal contexts fall within traditionally indirect strategies. Participants’ responses of compliment analyzed by following strategies that conducted by Holmes’ (1986). The result is that, almost all students tend to accept compliment in one way or another. The study recommends that advanced English language students should be aware of the sociolinguistic aspects of communicative competence, and teachers and lecturers should educate their students those conversations cannot be built only with a good sentence structure, but they need to know social and cultural aspects of communication, along with other recommendations.